Nadejda Mountbatten, Marchioness of Milford Haven
Nadejda Mikhailovna Mountbatten, Marchioness of Milford Haven, formerly Princess George of Battenberg, was a member of the Russian Imperial family who married a German prince but became a British subject and aristocrat. She was a close relation of the British Royal Family.Life
Countess Nadejda de Torby was the second daughter of Grand Duke Michael Mikhailovich of Russia and his morganatic wife Countess Sophie von Merenberg. She was a younger sister of Countess Anastasia de Torby.
Her paternal grandparents were Grand Duke Michael Nicolaievich of Russia and Princess Cecily of Baden. Michael was the seventh and last child of Nicholas I of Russia and Charlotte of Prussia. Her mother was a granddaughter of Aleksandr Pushkin, who in turn was a great-grandson of Peter the Great's African protégé, Abram Petrovich Gannibal.
Nicknamed "Nada", she married Prince George of Battenberg, later the 2nd Marquess of Milford Haven, in London, England, on 15 November 1916. They had two children: Lady Tatiana Elizabeth Mountbatten, who died unmarried, and David Michael Mountbatten, 3rd Marquess of Milford Haven, father of the present Marquess.
During the 1934 Gloria Vanderbilt custody trial, a former maid of Gloria Morgan Vanderbilt's offered testimony regarding a possible lesbian relationship between Lady Milford Haven and her former employer. Lady Milford Haven also appeared as a witness at the trial. Before leaving for the United States to testify, Lady Milford Haven publicly denounced the maid's testimony as "a set of malicious, terrible lies".
Nada and her sister-in-law, Edwina Mountbatten, were extremely close friends and the two frequently went together on rather daring adventures, travelling rough in difficult and often dangerous parts of the world.
Lady Milford Haven died in Cannes, France, in 1963.Ancestry
